(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - As a legislative ballot gets closer, Australia’s main opposition party remains in the lead, according to a poll by AC Nielsen published in The Sydney Morning Herald. 48 per cent of respondents would vote for the Australian Labor Party (ALP) in this month’s election to the House of Representatives, up one point since October.

The governing Coalition of Liberals and Nationals is second with 43 per cent, up three points since last month. The Australian Greens are a distant third with six per cent. Australia’s preferential voting system—where electors indicate an order of predilection for each contender, and the ballots from smaller parties are re-distributed—gives the ALP an eight-point lead over the Coalition.

In the October 2004 election, Howard was rewarded with a fourth term in office, as the Coalition secured 87 seats in the House of Representatives. The ALP—led by Mark Latham—elected 60 lawmakers. In December 2006, foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd became the new leader of the ALP, defeating Kim Beazley in an internal caucus ballot.

On Nov. 15, education minister Julie Bishop said a Coalition government would appoint a panel of experts to write curriculum guides for the country’s schools in order to make sure important subjects like English, math and sciences do not fall prey to temporary fads.

ALP education spokesman Stephen Smith said his party agrees with the need for a national curriculum, but criticized the minister’s idea, saying school curricula should be created by an independent body with diverse members and "should not be written by members of parliament, whether it’s me, John Howard or Julie Bishop."

The legislative election is scheduled for Nov. 24.

Polling Data

What party would you vote for in the next parliamentary election?

Two-Party Preferred Vote

Source: AC Nielsen / The Sydney Morning Herald
Methodology: Telephone interviews with 1,465 Australian voters, conducted from Nov. 6 to Nov. 12, 2007. Margin of error is 3.1 per cent.

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